Laughing Dog Huckleberry Cream Ale | Laughing Dog Brewing

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Notes / Commercial Description:
The huckleberry is native to the Pacific Northwest and it is prized for its sweetness and texture. To celebrate summer and the huckleberry picking season, we have blended real huckleberries from last season with our cream ale.

Reviews by acevenom:

Poured into a shaker pint glass. The beer pours dull hazy golden with a thin, quickly dissipating white head. There are some tiny bubbles visible in the beer. There is a lot of berry in the aroma along with some sweetness and floral notes. The flavor and mouthfeel are more indicative to the fact that you are drinking a beer. You get some of that malt and grassy hop bitterness in the back end. There's some sweetness and flavor from the berries in the beer. The mouthfeel is a lot thicker than a typical 5.0% ABV cream ale, but it is still on the medium side. It's also highly carbonated. This is refreshing and fairly drinkable. This is a good beer, but nothing I would seek out again. Fans of fruit beers would probably enjoy this more than I did.

More User Reviews:

This is a "time and place" beer. It screams "hot summer day" with its light, fruity mouthfeel. The huckleberry flavour is subtle, refreshing, and just enough to remind you where this beer is brewed. Best enjoyed with your ass jammed into some sort of inflatable floaty while bobbing around on a lake, surrounded by mountains.

This beer produces a well carbonated light orange pour. The aroma is sweet, fruity fragrant, sort of like a berry type of smell, and a slight creamy smelling is following through as well as it has warmed up for a few minutes in my glass. No date on the can or simple julian code to decipher as well. the taste is okay but not as impressive as the nose. it taste rather dull like a few other cream ales i have had in the past. The huckleberries are there but they are not overpowering in the flavor. The can artwork has improved on this beer I may add. the flavor pops more after about 15 to 20 minutes sitting in the glass but not much. It's decent but not amazing. Put those dates on the cans and bottles guys and gals. Fresh beer is always the best. Luckily, I did not purchase a can that was sitting on the shelf for a year or two. B- (80 -84) score range from me. Cheers!

Appearance: about a hand-worth of white, coarse head. I had to pour this one over about 10 minutes because it was so highly carbonated and foamed up so much despite my best efforts. I poured a nice clear golden color with bubbles like champagne.

Smell: It smells about like hiking through the Goat Rocks Wilderness on a hot late summer day when all the huckleberries are ripe and warming in the sun. Smelled great!

Taste: Not very complex. There was a bit of a sharp bite in addition to a strong huckleberry flavor. This is definitely a novelty beer in my opinion. No realy hop flavor, some bready malt, though. Like toast. Good, but not great.

Mouthfeel: Too freakin' carbonated. That combined with the biting flavor that I can't identify, and this actually was harsh in my mouth.

Drinkability: The nice huckleberry flavor made this nice to drink, despite the carbonation and bite.

So I wonder if this just doesn't bottle well. Sounds like it's pretty good on tap...

12oz bottle, from a recent trek through southern Idaho. Hottest day so far this summer, so it's fruit beer time!

This beer pours a mostly clear, medium golden amber hue, with one finger of creamy, and yet weakly foamy dirty white head, which leaves but a few specks of lace around the glass as it evenly settles, where it becomes evident that there seems to be a fair bit of fine particulate suspension as well.

It smells of donut-topping sweet huckleberry fruit, and doughy creamy malt - very reminiscent of the huckleberry ice cream I had somewhere on that trip. The taste is mild pale malt, and some strange tart citrus/huckleberry fruitiness, that devolves into a more green vegetal fruit essence, joining with the earthy hops to dry this sucker right out.

The carbonation is average, manifesting in just a wan frothiness throughout, the body medium-light in weight, and a little edgier than desirable for true smoothness, but decent enough in that respect. It finishes off-dry, barely, the weak malt overrun by that lingering semi-sweet berry fruitiness.

I had a bunch of this in a previous lifetime in Sandpoint - wasn't wowed then, and am not particularly wowed now. Interesting enough to try, but nothing I'd want to continue putting back on that patio I'm dying to get to today.

This is not the first time I've had this beer. I recall having had a 22 oz. bottle at one time years ago (although they only do 12 oz. now so maybe it was just a single...?). I recall not being impressed with it at the time because it was kind of blocky, but I feel that Laughing Dog has really improved their brewing across the board, and this was nicely balanced and rounded. And what makes it stand out now is that it's unique. There are plenty of raspberry wheats and so forth on the market, but I can think of only a small handful of other huckleberry beers. With that said, I can't really describe Huckleberry as I've never actually tasted the actual fruit, but I think I get the gist of it through drinking this beer: it's kind of like a soft red raspberry, but not... there's more to it... like a sweet blueberry. And whatever you might come up with, it works really well in their cream ale base because it's got the fruit character, but it's neither too tart, too sweet, nor too bitter. I think it would make a great summer ale, and I'm sure that it would work really well as a dessert beer if paired properly with the right accompaniment.

12oz bottle purchased at Huckleberry's in Spokane. Part one of my huckleberry beer face-off against Couer d'Alene's Huckleberry Ale.
Pours a rich golden hue topped by a small, bright white head that doesn't stick around for very long. Huge aroma of sweet, fruity huckleberries and just a touch of mild sweet malt. Palate is a nicely-balanced cream ale up front, with sweet malt and a touch of hops. A second after it hits the tongue, though, the huckleberries emerge full force. The fruity sweetness continues long through the swallow and onto the aftertaste, where a slight vanilla creaminess comes through as well. Body is nice and creamy, very well done. A tasty, easy-drinking beer that manages to be both very fruity, yet not overwhelming. I have to say, as far as fruit beers go, this one is pretty top-notch.

A big thanks to the incredible woodychandler for this beer. Poured from a 12 oz. can. Has a golden color with a 1/2 inch head and lots of carbonation. Smell is dominated by berries. Taste is berries, some sourness, a bit of malts, refreshing. Feels medium bodied in the mouth and overall is a unique and decent beer.

From what I understand this is their cream ale that has huckleberries added.

A: Poured a hazy lemony color very similar to their cream ale with a quickly rising, as well quickly diminishing eggshell white head that left a poor, spotty lacing. The haziness was thick, swirling with a light-medium effervesce detected underneath.

S: On the nose was a mixture of sugary sweetness and tart raspberries upon first opening. Unfortunately while in the glass the aroma was less then enthusiastic, powerful, and incentive. Soapy, detergent like scents were picked up mixed in with a berry tartness of what im guessing was the huckleberries (my only exposure to huckleberries previously was huckleberry hound from my cartoon childhood so im unsure of what they are suppose to taste like). Light underlying tones of sour oranges can be picked up on the finishing trail.

T: First impression taste wise yielded tart, citric tangerines, but was watery and seltzer like in nature. A musky damp yeastiness of grapefruit, oranges and lime combine with a sour pineapple fruitiness bringing mixed results. There seems to be a light carry-over from the aroma with noticeable soapy-detergent like hints mixed in with tart berries (blue and black). Stale citrus and berry juice is noted on the finish which was slightly bitter, acidic and thankfully short on the fade (no sense hanging around). Needless to say some soapy off flavors and flaws lends this to a unimpressive showing and rating.

M: lightbodied with a heavy handed carbonation gives this a macro-like feel. Soapy-alkaline lacing does little to help things out here and continues to be an re-occurring theme throughout the drink.

D: A cream that drinks like a tart, watery macro influenced fruit beer. A struggle to put down just one yielding little enjoyment, unless you count dumping it down the drain. Avoid at any and all cost.